Breathing Room
by ricebol
Summary: Some patrols go badly; then there are patrols like these.


**Summary:** Some patrols go badly; then there are patrols like these.  
**Notes:** Kinkmeme fill, prompt was for Rorschach having a panic attack/hyperventilating and Dan needing to talk him down. He's a pretty tough nut to crack so I had to pull out the big guns on this one, and bring them all to bear at once. Pardon the contrivances, CHEAP PLOT DEVICE IS CHEAP.  
**Rating/Warnings:** PG for situational nudity, but no funny business.  
**Characters/Pairings:** Dan, Rorschach  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

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**breathing room**

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**

"Hey, hey, it's all right," he's saying, over and over again, a mantra of reassurance that isn't quite cutting through the panic, and the Owlship's decking is hard and abrasive under his knees. He's naked, and Rorschach is naked too, with all of its implications of vulnerability and throat-baring submission, and Dan's acutely aware of that fact because god, it's only making this worse – but he knows that if he lets go of Rorschach's face for even a second to reach for something to cover them with, he'll only slip further under.

It really isn't what it looks like – it isn't. The hideout they'd been tipped off to tonight had been rigged against them, and the acid released from a reservoir somewhere far above them had started eating through their costumes like hungry, licking flames the moment it had hit. It was a gruesome welcome; they both know perfectly well how a strong enough acid bath is its own cleanup, no bodies to dispose of, and the Owlsuit's synthetics had held up better than Rorschach's cotton and leather but they'd both had to shed layers as they ran for the ship, garments left dissolving into green-black puddles on the asphalt, a breadcrumb trail of stinking, bubbling defeat.

It wasn't surprising that the latex had held the longest, but by the time they'd gotten into Archie the top layer had burst, bleeding black and white, boiling and spitting in reaction – and Dan hadn't even asked, hadn't allowed for an argument, watching the caustic substance burrowing in towards his partner's face, his eyes. It'd had to come off. Rorschach had stumbled bodily against him, half fighting him and half just _falling,_ fingers clawing at the remains of the mask – then had gone suddenly still, feeling with damning acuity all the places their bodies were touching, nothing more protective between them than a fine sheen of sweat, a bit of ash, a bit of blood. He hadn't breathed at all, for a good long moment.

They're on the floor now, hands on his face the only contact, and Rorschach is heaving gulping breaths, short and stilted, nowhere near deep enough; his lips are starting to turn vaguely blue. Dan knows what this is, recognizes the signs, remembers from his own awkward teenage years what an anxiety attack feels like - but he isn't sure how much of it is losing the mask and how much of it is their proximity, the smell of sweat and panic thick in the enclosed space. It's still dark because he hasn't had time to restart the electrics, and the only light is what diffracts through the Owlship's wide eyes, outlining everything in a delicate glow. There's so much skin and so many unavoidable implications and he knows he might be making it worse when he slides his hands down to Rorschach's throat, rubbing in at a slower pace than his wild, racing breath, encouraging him to match it.

"Come on, just breathe, this is okay, we're okay."

Under his fingers, throat muscles clench convulsively, a half-second from closing his airway entirely; the sharp, desperate puffs of breath are louder than they should be in the quiet of the shut-down ship. "Not-" he manages to choke out, and his hands are starting to shake and slacken where they're wrapped around Dan's wrists, an oxygen-starved grey-out draining the rest of the color from his face. "Like this. Touching. I – nnk. Shouldn't see me." A sound like he's choking, and Dan tips his chin back with both thumbs, trying to keep his throat open. "...Shouldn't see _you_."

"It's fine," Dan soothes, words out immediately because for all the broken, choppy attempts at communication, he does understand. "I don't mind, really, and it's not like we had a choice anyway." He shifts his weight to sit on the deck, massaging the rhythm of breath into the knotted and tense muscles under his hands – smoothing down over the raised ridge of collarbone to urge the air deeper. "Every night we go out, you trust me to have your back, right? To not let you down, or hurt you, or anything like that?"

There's no answer through the broken pattern of air, but he isn't saying no, isn't shaking his head in denial, isn't going on about how he doesn't trust anyone and that no one is _worthy_ of trust; that's as good as an affirmative.

"Then it's okay, to be here like this. Because we're partners, we trust each other." The argument is simple, almost childlike, but not much else is going to get through right now; Dan knows that from experience. Small words, straightforward concepts, metered out carefully; a fragile length of line, reeled in an inch at a time.

He turns his head slightly, tracking the spill of streetlight through the round windows; the strange shapes it casts on the floor, and the way the amber glow of it is outlining Rorschach's entirely flawed and unfamiliar human shape in hard lines of yellow-gold and red, an impressionistic abstract of something warpainted and primitive and carnal, heaving breathlessly in the darkness. He knows he must look the same; lets out his own shuddering exhale. "...god. Okay. We'll just get back to the Nest, and get some spare things, and..."

The panic isn't dissipating; breath is there, is flowing, but is still too harsh, too fast, and when those hands finally slip free of his wrists, Dan can feel a sympathetic twinge of numbness in his own, of the sharp pins and needles of nerves drowning in deoxygenated blood. The words aren't working.

...standing at the lip of a cliff is only terrifying as long as you stay on the edge; step back or jump, doesn't matter which, and the fear transmutes into something else, something manageable. The teetering and waiting and feeling gravity tug and tug – that's the only part that makes the heart beat in the throat like a swarm of metal-winged butterflies, stirring terror, fight or flight, breath dragged out clawing and dangerous...

And the words aren't _working._

His hands find easy purchase around Rorschach's back, not flinching away when his ribcage shudders and bucks under the contact. Dan pulls him in until they are flush skin-to-skin and that skittering, panicked breath is hitting his ear, is riding against his chest and under his arms. "It's okay," he mumbles, over and over again, "We're fine, this is fine, this is okay," but he doubts Rorschach's even hearing him; he's burying his nose into the crook of Dan's shoulder, blinding his eyes and hiding his face all at once –

_(see no evil, show no evil)_

-and maybe there's something else here, fueling the panic. Something beyond simple vulnerability and a identity violently stripped away and eyes and hands going beyond the bounds of propriety – and the smell of both of their costumes burning, evoking uglier sense-memories of worse nights, worse patrols. Something that hums restlessly between skin and skin and drives Rorschach to clutch fumblingly at flesh he should have no desire to touch, slick with cold sweat and fear. Maybe. But if there is, this is not the time to address it; and under the solid weight of unmoving hands, restraining him in place, breath slows and evens out and deepens.

They stay as they are for a few minutes, not so much molded as jammed together like mismatched jigsaw edges, elbows and knees refusing to line up, before Rorschach finally speaks, a dull vibrato against the skin of Dan's throat.

"...need clothes, Daniel. Too early in the night to stop patrolling."

And Dan laughs, and it rumbles through his chest and through Rorschach's too, and the situation is still insane – they're naked and unmasked and bleeding and acid-burned in patches and a long ways from safe ground, and they've just blown a bust and if _any_ of this gets back to the criminal underworld it'll take weeks to put the fear back in them where it belongs – but it's suddenly a bearable insanity, with enough breathing room to regain their bearings; something they can walk away from, a new and tenuous understanding unspooling between them in the quiet.

.

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_(c) ricebol 2009_


End file.
